My son, Jesse, lost a friend on Friday night.  Shaky lived in one of the parks in Santa Barbara and, as I understand it, was a bit of a legend in his community. He and his friends were together Friday evening and he decided to go to sleep before the others. In the morning, Gator, Shaky's best friend and constant companion, went to wake him but Shaky was gone.

Jesse didn't get to the park until Shaky's body had already been taken away. He was told they'll cremate him and wait to hear if there is something that someone somewhere wants done with the ashes. Jesse gathered Shaky's earthly possessions from behind the dumpster where he had been asleep and brought them to Gator and the others. There wasn't much. 

Gator had a number for a woman he believed to be Shaky's mama. He didn't want the coroner to contact her about the death so asked Jesse to please make the call. Jesse did. He found out that she was actually Shaky's grandmother and he explained to her that he had some bad news. Of course, she was very upset by it but Jesse let her know that Shaky had been well loved.

continue reading

September 10, 2009 marks the day headlines across the country and a few abroad revealed this: U.S. poverty rate hits 11-year high.

 

While several news sources posted the story I’ve chosen Reuters to share if you’d like to read the article here. 

 

Poverty stinks from every angle. It challenges personal esteem, often times deflating it. It challenges relationships, often times breaking them. It crushes dreams and snuffs out hope.  It’s suffocating, it’s exhausting, and it’s awful.

 

A few years ago I worked for an accredited Non-profit organization that was run by the church that employed me. This organization sought to bring life transformation to families residing in local motels. Motel life is generational. If you were a kid growing up living in a motel, odds are you are raising your kids in a motel today. In 2002, when I first began with this organization, there were an estimated 250 families living in motels in one city.

 

continue reading

I often begin my mornings sitting quietly in the living room with a cloudy mug of PG Tips, watching the traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge. The Tappan Zee is a fabled stretch of concrete and steel, desperately overwhelmed and showing its age. But, most days, it faithfully does its job providing mindless and safe passage over the Hudson to thousands of commuters.

I wonder at times, what would happen if my bridge gave into its age, sighed heavily and collapsed into the Hudson? Chaos would ensue; people would be instantly cut off from their jobs and communities would suddenly be disconnected. The old bridge is a tenuous vein that sustains life in the metro region. Without that bridge, the flow of life would end and communities would die of isolation.

Sometimes, as I stare at the bridge, I think of Robert. He is a hushed homeless man who hangs out on the peeling green benches in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park. The first time I met Robert, I kept staring at his hands. An African-American from St. Croix, Robert had vivid white hands, cracked and swollen from the cold and the alcohol. They were thick and heavy, folded into his ragged green sweatshirt.

continue reading